


believe what you wish

by jedormis (dottie_wan_kenobi)



Category: DCU, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Afterlife, Ancient History, Gen, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Multiple Religion & Lore Sources, POV Dick Grayson, Past Character Death, Pre-Slash, Roman Dick Grayson, not actually angsty!, sorta - Freeform, sorta lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-10 01:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18650245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi/pseuds/jedormis
Summary: “Are you a scientist? I know they sometimes wear odd clothing.”Looking down at his outfit—a skin-tight yellow suit made of material Dick has never seen before—Wally flushes and stutters out, “Yeah, I’m—I mean, that’s me, heh, a scientist….”“A religious one?”“Uh, no...t really?”“Oh, good.” Usually it’s easier to convince atheists. “Wally, you asked what happened. I’m sorry to say, but you’re dead.”





	believe what you wish

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from a quote by Julius Caesar: "Men willingly believe what they wish."
> 
> I was looking through prompts and saw "I died over 2000 years ago and you’ve been dead for like 2 hours, man, damn it now I have to explain this shit to you. Great.", which immediately inspired me to write this! I went off from the prompt a bit but it's still pretty close? Hopefully I'm not the only one out there interested in this type of thing lol
> 
> For Dick's name, I did some research but nothing intense, so the naming conventions are probably wrong, but shrug
> 
> Warnings: both Dick and Wally are dead in this fic, and while there's nothing graphic at any point, there are mentions of how they died

Dick absentmindedly stretches out his legs, rolling one ankle, then the other. His sandals still look new, and while he waits, he appreciates the way the light-colored string and leather looks against his darker skin. Of course, his clothing—pristinely white, the gold accents in perfect condition—contrasts nicely, too.

It’s nice to be back in his own body, even if he does have to do work that’s far beneath him.

The room he’s in is rather bland, though many of the souls he’s met here have called it comforting and homely. Maybe if it had more pillars or other such architecture, he could agree. The only ornate part is the door, big enough to fit a statue through, and with a beautiful stained-glass mural. It depicts all sorts of afterlifes, from the Christian to the Islamic, pagan to atheist, and everything in between. 

He looks at it now, relieved to see the shadow just beyond the doorway. Not allowed to open it or coax the soul in, Dick simply sits on the table provided and waits some more.

It takes quite a while. Though he’s long dead, and doesn’t need to sleep anymore, he yawns and dreams of his old bed. It was more than big enough, and soft,  _ so  _ soft. Much better than this plane of existence, where he sits in this room most hours of the day and waits for dead people to come in and fight him about it.

This one, his last of the day, finally opens the door.

An attractive, tall, red-headed man in a rather odd outfit peeks in. Green eyes sweep over the room, halting once they reach Dick, sitting there like a child, swinging his legs. Immediately, he stops and jumps off the table, standing at his full height. He barely reaches the man’s shoulders.

“It’s alright,” he says, putting on a friendly smile. “You can come in if you want.”

“What is this? What happened?” The man asks, stepping hesitantly into the room. His hand doesn’t leave the door handle, but that’s okay. Once they’re inside, they can’t go back out that door until they know what’s befallen them.

“I think you should come and sit down.” He sweeps his hand out to the chairs, of which there are several, all centered around the table. A stool, one that looks like a throne with its tall back, a recliner, a dinner table chair, even a bean bag. That one is Dick’s favorite, but he’s not allowed to sit until the soul has made their choice.

The man eyes up the seating options, pulling the mask off his face after a moment but not sitting down. “Who are you?”

Trying not to remember the days everyone knew his name, he answers, “Diokles, but you may call me Dick. And you?”

“Wally West. Um, just anywhere?” He points to the chairs, and when Dick nods, he goes and sits on the dinner table chair. Dick takes the throne-looking one, sensing that taking the bean bag would be the wrong choice here.

“Wally,” he begins, “What is your last memory?”

Wally fidgets, and Dick has to force his eyes not to wander down the long expanse of his body. The souls that come to him are usually elderly people, so it’s rather nice to have someone more aligned to his...interests here. He still has a job to do, however, and can’t let that distract him.

“I was helping my uncle and my, uh, cousin with something. It was really important, actually, like world-saving important, so I should probably go and find them, see if they need anymore help from me—”

“Oh!” Dick interrupts, realizing something. “You are a scientist, aren’t you?”

“W-what?”

“Are you a scientist? I know they sometimes wear odd clothing.”

Looking down at his outfit—a skin-tight yellow suit made of material Dick has never seen before—Wally flushes and stutters out, “Yeah, I’m—I mean, that’s me, heh, a scientist….”

“A religious one?”

“Uh, no...t really?”

“Oh, good.” Usually it’s easier to convince atheists. “Wally, you asked what happened. I’m sorry to say, but you’re dead.”

Wally pauses for several seconds, just staring at Dick. It’s unnerving. When he reanimates, however, he shakes his head like a dog might and laughs. “Haha, good one! But like, seriously, I should go and meet up with my famil—”

Dick bites down on the urge to make Wally laugh again. It’s more important that he understand this is no joke. “Wally. You are dead.”

“Is that some kind of threat?” The other man, who sat gingerly on the edge of his seat to begin with, tenses as the last word comes out.

In response, Dick leans back, showing he has no intention of attacking. “Not at all. It’s simply a fact. This is the afterlife, and I’m your soul’s guide.”

“My soul’s...guide.” Wally, then, looks him up and down. Heat burns in Dick’s face as he notices that Wally’s gaze is  _ thorough _ . “You said your name is Diokles?”

“Yes.” Diokles Graysilius of the Wayne family.

“And what, you’re dead too?”

“This toga is no costume,” Dick quips, turning his head some to take in the wonderful contrast again. (It’s sad, really, the kinds of things he finds enjoyment in these days.)

“Dude, what happened to you?”

At the sound of Wally’s shocked question, Dick looks at himself in the sole mirror in the room, a rather large one on the wall straight across from the door. The head wound that killed him is still visible, but the blood and gore of it aren’t. It’s straightforward, a killing blow, a reminder of the ‘wrongs’ he committed while he was alive. Wally West has no such wound, not one that Dick can see at least.

“Treason,” he says eventually. That’s the official answer, anyway. “Malicious intent against Rome. Child endangerment. Take your pick.”

They were  _ saving lives _ . Making things better, safer. That’s not how the emperor saw it, of course.

Wally nearly falls out of his seat. “Rome?! How old are you?”

“Twenty-five,” he shrugs, deciding not to tell the other man he’s been dead for around two thousand years at this point.

“That’s not…. You can’t be serious.” Shaking his head, he looks at himself in the mirror, standing and going so he can look closer. In a small voice, he asks, “If I was dead, wouldn’t there be evidence?”

Dick follows him over, standing close but not too close. In the past, he’s had to catch fainters when they got their proof. “May I see your hand?”

Hesitantly, Wally lets him take his hand and remove the glove he’s wearing. Dick puts his own hand out, palm down, and concentrates. Suddenly, the rings and other jewelry appear to be floating around thin, old bones, his blue-painted nails fading away along with his skin and such. He reaches out and touches Wally’s bare hand.

Wally flinches, but doesn’t move away, just taking in the feeling of rough fingertips. “How is this happening?” He whispers, mesmerized.

“I’m concentrating,” he jokes. “You can do it, too. Just imagine what you would look like, if you were a skeleton… oh, gods! Not all of you!”

Wally, his face nothing more than a skull with hair, looks up to the mirror and screams. Jerking his hand away, he stumbles backwards, knocking over the stool and falling straight onto the bean bag. His head drops into his hands, all of which are back to normal, and his breath hitches.

Dick kneels on the ground beside him, trying to be a comforting presence and not a frightening one.

“So, I’m dead?” Wally asks, voice cracking on the last word.

“I’m sorry,” is all Dick can say back.

“Is that it, then? I can never go back? No freak accidents where ‘oh, haha, corpse wakes up at his own funeral’?”

“You can go back to Earth if you want, but most times, those that do get stuck there and can never move on.” 

Wally doesn’t reply for a moment, and Dick slowly lays a hand on his back, rubbing gently. He’s more than aware of how hard it is, to come to terms with these things. Those that made a difference—an assumption, yes, but don’t scientists usually have large impacts on society?—never want to let go. Their work isn’t done. There are more people or animals or plants or whatever else to save, to preserve, to help.

Eventually, Wally looks up. His eyes are wet and it makes Dick’s dead heart stumble in his chest. “Can I just ask you a question?” 

“Yes, of course,” he breathes out, forgetting that it’s his job, thinking he’d answer any question this man could possibly ask him.

“Did we save the world? Me and Barry and Bart?”

Dick has no idea what he means by that, or who Barry and Bart are, but he smiles at Wally, infusing all of his conviction in his words. “If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here.”

Sighing in relief, Wally smiles back, a beaming and beautiful one, and suddenly, Dick finds that he doesn’t quite mind having to deal with the newly dead. 

**Author's Note:**

> If anything is super wrong grammar wise, feel free to lmk in the comments!!
> 
> Sorry if it feels like it ended abruptly dskljflskdfjklsajdf


End file.
